Shalom my dear friends.
It’s me again, Harif, you know, Kelita by nickname.

I wrote you a letter with the events of Shavuot after the ascension of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah. But that’s a lot of new moons.

I am writing to you today – in the joyful hope of the letter, may you reach out at the right time – from a small town called Mumba-Aai.
This is in the distant territory of the Kings of the East. The country here in the Hebrew language is called “Hodu.” I didn’t know that it gives so far away from home, so lovely spots and places on God’s creation. So colorful, so loud, so cheerful.
Whereby the cheerfulness often seems quite set up, but this with full enthusiasm.

What I’m doing here? Good question, but easily answered: Shortly after the events of that time, when our Lord Jesus went to heaven, only a few moon runs later, my dear twin brother Thomas had a dream.
To be more precise: an encounter with the risen in the dream. I have not experienced the dream myself, but just as Thomas gave it back to me and the assembled church, it must have been really very impressive:

From a glaring light came two hands, with the cross marks of our Lord, just as He showed Thomas his hands when He stepped into our midst. After that, his body and face became visible, both enlightened by joy and love.

In addition to Jesus, a second person slowly appeared, who probably looked very strange. The man was dressed in robes made of orange and pink fabric, on the head a turban of different colors. He was certainly a head smaller than Jesus, had a skin color like cherry wood or cedar wood and in the middle of his forehead, between his eyes, a red spot was emblazoned.
This spot, however, changed in the short moment that Thomas could look at it in the dream in something like a symbol, as the cross suffered from the Jesus. This man looked unattended to Jesus and sang a song in a language that Thomas did not know; but Jesus gave it to Thomas in his heart to understand. So he could empathize with some lines of the song that the strange man apparently performed for the praise of Jesus:

“There are unbelievers – I chose the true faith.
I was hungry now I was saturated. Sometimes we are sad – but in Him joy Jesus is not far away – He is right next to you and me.
I have Jesus, yes, I have Jesus, I have Jesus Christ in my heart. I have Jesus, yes, I have Jesus in my heart, and He has mine!”

Thomas remembered how his tears were running out in his dream and he wanted to call out to our Lord with joy, but his mouth was closed. Instead, Jesus himself raised his voice and looked at Thomas with pervasive love, not turning clear eyes. He raised his voice, which sounded exactly like Thomas knew her. Full of compassion, of delicately melting intonation in the ears, but still sublime, royal, with the authority of a ruler. He said, “Thomas, my beloved child, I am always near, never far away…” While Jesus spoke a darkness behind the strange man, who tried to approach the man through the light of Jesus’ glory, did not make it. The man also kept his eyes constantly on Jesus.,This is my faithful servant Mehuman, for he is very trustworthy. I love him as I love you, and he loves me. Now take your brother, the younger, your friends who are with you, and your faith, move to the foreign land that I will show you. Wherever I once sent this man’s gender, because they belong to me. And I have chosen you, Thomas, to strengthen Mehuman and his brothers, for I have appeared to him, and he has loved me. So now go and don’t stroll, I have spoken to you!”
No one who heard this, like Jesus himself had spoken to Thomas in his dream, doubted that Thomas was called to travel to Hodu to look for our new brother in Jesus there. But since we could not really guess at that time how long and far and prosperous the way would really be, and above all how great Hodu is, we were happy courage and the church and Peter laid the hands on Thomas and me and our friends and brothers Ataja and Hemdan, and they sent us out to the foreign lands, knowing that the Holy Spirit would guide us on our way.
I could tell you many things that we have experienced on our long and arduous journey through Parthia and Persia, often on watercourses and ravenous streams, often on barren foothills, often starving and freezing, then thirsty again and passing in the heat. But that’s not why I’m writing to you today. But perhaps this opportunity arises again to report on it.
I want to tell you today about thoughts that the Holy Spirit of God gave me when we sat in our tents under the leafy trees by the sea. We had chosen this camp because it seemed to us to escape the midday heat and to seek refuge in the cooling sea breeze, if the wind stood from the west and not from the east.
From the Euphrates Delta we travelled with a merchant ship, whose captain did not assure us to head to many ports before he wanted to reach the port of Mumba-Aai and even asked us to travel free in case we would help him and his meager crew in the ports to load and unload the cargo. Of course, we were very happy to admit to that, because although we did not lack for anything on this trip, but we probably could have hardly afforded the crossing. When we arrived in the desired port after five tough months (because motivated by new workers, the ship’s captain did not let more ports than planned to run to do more business) was like we were entering a whole new world. Everything was colorful, everything smelled different than before in Persia. People looked even more used to for us. The animals, which also use the Hodus as a means of transport, looked even more powerful for us than camels and are probably called elephants. The temples in which the inhabitants of this country worship their so-called gods look even richly decorated than in other cities and countries on our journey. They are actually found in an excess on every street corner; there are also whole temple areas where various images of God are, for they seem to have thousands of these idols, worshipped and worshipped. Everywhere people throw themselves down, sometimes there in front of the temple, then again before that shrine. Even in front of a cow lying on the way and a fruit-clawing fat rat, I saw people throwing themselves to the ground. It was curious on the one hand, but also scary on the other. We pray daily to Jesus that He may also reveal his light and his truth to these people, and that He would use us for it where possible.
I wanted to tell you about the market, sorry that I have a little bit of a way in all these impressions that I carry in me,~~
If I quite remember, the market here is not so different from the markets we and you know so. There is everything you can imagine: goods such as pots, cloth, vegetables, bread, milk, a kind of fermented juice (I prefer not to call it wine), also meat and many different fish, spices almost at every single stand and of course also small hand-carved idols. The whole range is unspeakably colorful, the sweets unspeakably sweet, the spices spread an unspeakable fragrance and the sellers are unspeakably loud when they compete against each other to attract buyers to their market stalls. Everything reminds me a little of the goings-on at the Xystos market in Jerusalem the day before the Shabbat. I don’t know exactly what it was, maybe the completely foreign language, with which we were tried to chat all sorts of goods. We were simply helplessly at the mercy of the sellers’ offer salvos and had to make ourselves understood with hands and feet in order not to be moved to every stand. And if we managed to deny with our hands, the traders showed us with their feet what they thought of not wanting to buy from them. I definitely saw in many eyes of the traders, even if they screamed and offered so loudly, a profound sadness and helplessness. A deep sense of concern spread within me. Then I was reminded by the Holy Spirit of our ever-present God of a scripture from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and that is now also the reason why I write these lines to you today, because at the same time words of our Lord Jesus came to my mind again, which he once said to us. There is a great urge in me to briefly report in me how my thoughts work in my heart: Right far behind in the scroll of the prophet Isaiah (1) YHWH raises his voice to call to his people; and I see formally Jesus’ face on the body of one of these merchants of the market, who shouts loudly and clearly with his gentle voice: “To you thirsty, all, come to the water! And you have no money, come, buy and eat! Yes, come on, buy wine and milk without money and without the purchase price!” At this point, the actual dealer was greedy on my wallet, which I wear tied around my neck on the chest. But then I hear Jesus’ voice again, which calls as with the voice of an angel: “Why do you weigh money for what is not bread, and your merit for what does not saturate? Listen to me, and eat the good and your soul feeds on the fat!” More scrolls are approaching me in memory, and I sincerely hope that one of the brothers will actually prepare the work of the life and words of our Lord Jesus, so that his profound and redeeming words will not be lost. A scroll rises and I see Jesus with this Samaritan woman, plagued by guilt and shame, standing there at the fountain of Jacob when he said: “Everyone who drinks from this water will thirst again; but whoever will drink of the water, that I may give him, will not thirst for ever, but the water that I will give him will become a spring of living water in him (2)
Doesn’t that also go into the lives of these merchants, who indeed offer their goods, but have none of it a value for eternity? Water even evaporates unused if we do not drink it or use it for washing. And if the water of Jesus, as He has explained, stands for His Holy Spirit, who wants to refresh and refresh and refresh us at all times and independently of situation and environment, then everyone here in Hodu needs it, right? This one fishmonger comes to mind, who threw more and more different fish into this basket with a basket in his hand and screaming loudly and questioning the passers-by, yes, asking as if he were making a totally good offer. I assume he did that too. But unfortunately, he does not yet know anything about the very best offer, which the living God himself makes, by letting the prophet Isaiah urgently shout three times: “Come!” Come, even without money, your reputation is not important, it is important that you return to me, your God. And does not God himself offer this to the lab of the soul, which in the rite of sacrifice of the old covenant under the law Moses only belonged to Him, namely the fat of the sacrificial animal (3)? What generosity! Nothing is too valuable to him to give it to us when we come to Him. This makes my tears rise, because there is another scroll in front of my inner eye, which is not yet written and I see Jesus on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, close to the city of Capernaum where He spoke to the people who followed Him after this miraculous multiplication of bread to Tiberias and demanded more and more miracles. They did not yet understand what Jesus wanted to show them with the feeding of the many. He did not say, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will no longer be hungry.” (4)?
And He even explained that He was the true bread of life, not like the manna from heaven, which nevertheless brought death in spite of consumption, but that it was a matter of faith, if one had the spiritual nourishment, Jesus or Jesus. God’s words, receive in themselves and trust in them, one will also have eternal life. Together with Him himself in the glory of God, a place where hunger and thirst, which may plague us in the world, will no longer play any role. In God’s presence, we will have everything in abundance and in abundance. Hallelujal I don’t know if you could follow my thoughts, I just want to say that we often run after things that are only transient and we hang our hearts on situations, objects and experiences that can only please the moment. This joy has usually passed after a short time, fizzles out like a drop of water in the sun. Only joy with and in God is lasting, for it is eternal.
As I now sit here at the entrance of the tent, which Thomas and I inhabit together and let the cooler evening breeze blow around the robe, I enjoy a glass of this aromatic spice tea from the market. I look towards the sunset, amazed how the fiery red sun disk sinks into the sea. When we sat on the shore of the sea in the west of Israel in the evening, we also saw such sunsets and admired God’s great creation. He makes it day and night, again and again, completely according to his good pleasure. And if I consider that we are already on the road for months and have moved steadily to the east, it does not seem to me as if the action of the sunset is further away than on the shores of Israel. Only the people here are others. If I now still consider who actually brought us here at these spots of the world, namely Jesus himself, then it rattles again in my head, as in an old mill tower where grain is ground into the finest flour. Again, a verse of the prophet Isaiah comes to mind, which is immediately after the verse already listed above. There it is spoken of the Messiah, Jesus, “Behold, I have set him as a witness for peoples, the prince and ruler of peoples. Behold, you will summon a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know you will run to you because of Yahweh your God, and because of the Holy One of Israel. He made you wonderful.” (*5).
It is really worth reading the whole paragraph if you should get your hand on the scroll. Now we are sitting here in a country that we do not know and whose language we do not understand in the beginning. In my eyes, it is as the Prophet wrote in the name of God. And when I see myself the idol temples and the hunger in the eyes of the people here, I am also sure that they are not indifferent to our God, who became man in Jesus and who believe in him eternal life.
In the morning we also met a Greek trader in the market, who previously lived in the land of Israel for a while. We were really happy to meet at least one person we could communicate with. We naturally came to speak in conversation on the bottom of our journey and we told Gajus, because that is the name of the man we received from Jesus’ mission, namely the Gospel, to bring the good news of eternal salvation to Hodu. And do you know what Gajus told us? The people here in Hodu believe that after their death they would be born again in a different form, whether human or animal or stone. Now, in this earthly life, through good works, sacrifices to the gods, and the manifold reciting of prayer tablets, they try to escape this cycle of eternal reborn. If their so-called karma is good enough, they can even achieve the eternal nothingness that is still above the realms of the gods. As far as I understand this, however, this is probably only possible for the better-offs of society anyway. Different other social classes are probably not at all possible to obtain the favor of the gods. However, I find it so sad that people here do not yet know the living and true God. But I see it that Jesus met the man Mehuman from this nation and He has now sent us to this land to help Mehuman spread the gospel, for it seems that God no longer makes a difference between His people Israel and the nations of the nations. He would like many people to be saved by the sacrifice of his Son Jesus. Somehow understandable, since God has conceived every single person and created him to want to preserve his creation. One thing only worries me: Gajus, the merchant told us that in the very south of the huge country of Hodu there is probably a region around the city of Mandarajya (which is called “City of the Simple”), where, according to the Babylonian captivity, a small part of the tribe of Manasseh is drawn instead of returning to the land of Israel. Gajus thinks that Mehuman may be found there, and that the journey there should be quite arduous and time-consuming. Pray, my friends, who hear these lines and read that we may succeed before the coming of Jesus to our destination to complete our mission there and on the journey there.
But I can already convey good news to you today, directly here from Mumba-Aai, because when we told Gajus the saving message of Jesus’ blood for the eradication of sins, he immediately accepted the word willingly and we could also immediately baptize him in the name of Jesus Christ, the heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit! He has even agreed to join our tour group, which will certainly become a great blessing for us along the way, because Gajus even speaks a little of this complicated language, which is probably called Sanskrit and which is used to speak here. This conversion and this man are clearly a gift from our gracious God!
If we did not have the clear mandate to seek Mehuman, we would certainly dwell a little to become somewhat powerful even in the language and to tell the lost souls here also of the greatest special offer of all time; namely of the special offer that God made to us through the sacrifice of his beloved Son. We may be saved out of pure grace, we can and need not do anything, we need not pay anything, for He has given everything and paid for it on the cross of Calvary! What an offer that we only have to accept, like a gift for the Purimfest! I will certainly think about this topic on our journey for a long time and maybe have the lines I wrote to you today also a little moved to pause now and think about and discuss this unique special offer of God!
If time permits and I should find directions for my lines, I will tell you more about our travels from the distant land of Hodu. Pray for us!
Warm greetings and commanded God,
Your Harif!

(1: Jesaja 55, 1+2)
(2: John 4, 13+14)
(3: Leviticus 1,8; 3,3; 4,31; 7,3 →7,22-25) (
4: John 4, 35)
(*5: Jesaja 55, 4+5)